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Amazon Calls Children's Privacy Complaint Groundless
theodp writes "Eleven groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Junkbusters, filed a complaint with the FTC, asking that it investigate Amazon for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. An Amazon spokesman called the complaint groundless because "Amazon.com is not a site directed at children." So what was the deal with those Amazon Press Releases for the Harry Potter Magical Candy Contest For Children Ages 6 to 13, Toy Quest Toy Design Contest For Kids 12 And Under, and the Be a Poet Contest For All Kids 12 and Under?"
Update: 04/23 23:54 GMT by T :theodp writes with an update from Ad Age which says that Amazon has "announced it has removed children's identifying information from its Web sites."
...but it's hard to fault Amazon too harshly. If you let 12 year-olds type in any form, they have the opportunity to reveal personal information. You can either completely deprive them of keyboard input, or you can attempt to screen for mistakes. I would err to the side of empowering them, and keep a sharp lookout for infractions.
A system that might be helpful (though it would detract from the number of participants) would be to require that kids typing on forms be sponsored by an adult (proven with at least a non-charged credit card number) and that adult would then receive copies of all the text the child typed at an e-mail address of choice. This would give parents the opportunity to monitor what data had got out, and shift the responsibility for properly screening it onto their shoulders, without requiring them to regularly comb through Amazon to see what had been posted.
Of course the deeper social issue of using the Internet as a babysitter and requiring that the rest of the world baby-proof the information universe is certainly worth addressing.
Not a lot of sense closing the barn door, after the horse is gone...
So the article suggest that they company should ask for peoples ages. Now this I can see as a deterrant but if a child find that putting in under 13 redirects them to disney.com what is to stop then just signing up again and changing their age?
What I'm basically trying to say that the parents should be monitoring what their kids are doing. Treat the internet as the same the street. Don't talk to strangers or give out personal information
Rus
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There is a certain amount of responsibility on the parents of said young children to know what they are doing and where they are going on the Internet. Sadly many parents are so ignorant about all this stuff that they don't have the know how to even monitor what their children do online. My daughter (who's currently in the works) is going to be supervised... and I'll likely set up a proxy of some sort so I can bust her later if she goes to playgirl.com ;)
I'm just sick of people blaming their failure as a parent on someone else.
Parents should be responsible indeed. Even when your kids shoot up their highschool. If parents (and yes, I *am* a parent) had to take responsibility for their kids actions, and that meant consequences for their kids actions, parents would pay a LOT more attention and be a LOT more involved.
whenever bad laws get applied to entities with money. This is usually the only way the laws get struck down or narrowed by the courts.
Why is this law bad? Because lawmakers can't seem to understand what can and can't be legislated. This is another law that makes about as much sense as the "evil bit" joke RFC. Just because it's a good idea to prevent something doesn't mean you can. It would be good to keep childern from playing in the streets as well, but you won't see millions spent on "you must be this tall to enter" signs.
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
Come on...drive down a street, any street, and open a mailbox. You'll get the last name. Watch the house. You'll see if there are kids. If you listen, you'll hear the parents call out their kid's names.
If someone is a pervert, being armed with a name and a city/state isn't going to make them do something. They're going to do something because they're a pervert, and they'll be able to get a name with no problem regardless. Come on.
I think the point here is that they had this stuff come out for kids, and then turned around and said that they're not necessarily a kid-oriented site. It may be after the fact, but it's still not the Right Thing to put up (say) fluffy bunnies and deny you do it.
This sig no verb.
Maybe I'm naive, but I have to ask, "How do you enforce this?"
More importantly - why should I care?
If Amazon had a "pedophile" section - that might bother me. Or if there were a chat room on Amazon where people might actually be able to interact with an unsupervised 12 year old... then I might see how that is bad.
But if a kid is allowed to post up a review... I'm not seeing why the hell that matters - other than the review might suck. Even then, 12 is still pretty mature - 5 year olds... maybe even 7 year olds - but 12? Hell, that is middle school! Those are young adults.
But the truth of the matter - if you really wanted to get Amazon to care about kids on the site - make it clear to them that you would have bought the product, but you didn't because you saw that a 12 year old reviewed the product and was *obviously* unsupervised - therefore you went and bought the product elsewhere.
Then Amazon will have reason to care.
Even then, I don't see why they should have to care why some people are just insanely uptight and apparently have a lot of free time on their hands.
I would also think that a larger problem isn't the kids posting reviews, but actually buying crap.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Isn't Toys-R-Us for PARENTS? Kids don't buy toys, Parents buy toys.